Eagles Over Bangladesh: The Indian Air Force in The 1971 Liberation War

$0.00

by Faiz Hakim

Date Added: Tuesday 22 April, 2014

Now this is how a book of historical value about air war should be written! Details about squadrons, equipment, location, political history, etc are to be found in the right measure to make this a valuable edition to my library and for that anyone else's library. The description of the air battle in the skies pitting Hunters and MiG 21s against F-86 Sabres is engrossing. The book appears to be honest to its core and pulls no punches describing the victories of the Indian Air Force pilots over the Pakistan Air Force pilots and also vice versa. I came away with a great deal of admiration for our pilots who had fuel to loiter for just a couple of minutes over Dhaka as they were operating at the extreme range of their short-legged aircrafts. I also ended up admiring the pilots of the PAF who tried their best to counter the Indian threat despite being constantly attacked and who also faced certain death if captured by the local Bangladeshis if they were shot down. The book is also able to point to tactical and strategic victories and mistakes by both sides quite well. I especially love the sequence describing the concrete busting dumb bombs employed by MiG 21s to make the airport in Bangladesh useless and the sequence about the visiting journalist who had to get away from attacking Indian aircrafts. I congratulate the authors on writing a fine book with beautifully written grammatically correct prose of significant value to history buffs like me who love aircrafts and also love to fly on their own. The authors are able to bring to life and make the reader feel as if he/she is involved in the life and death struggle in the skies over Dhaka. This is one of the best military books I have. I wish these authors to take a crack at writing about the recipients of Param Vir Chakra instead of the current author who while writing on one of the most important subjects did a hatchet job on it. I for one would buy it.